Audi Type T

The Audi Type T was a large six-cylinder sedan introduced by Audi in 1931, in most respects a scaled-down version of the Type SS Zwickau that had appeared two years earlier. Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen, the Danish-born industrialist who bought Audi-Werke in 1928, had in 1927 bought the plant of the bankrupt Detroit business Rickenbacker and moved it to a factory he owned near Zschopau, close to Audi's Zwickau plant. He meant to build large, relatively inexpensive American-style engines for other German makers, but no orders came, so he built two cars of his own with those engines, and the Type T was the second and smaller. Its six-cylinder engine of 3,838 cc developed 55 kW at 3,200 rpm and drove the rear wheels through a four-speed manual gearbox with a central floor lever. It had two leaf-sprung solid axles and four-wheel hydraulic brakes, came as a four-door Limousine or a two-door convertible, and 76 were made.